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57 comments:

Rules? - No trolling.- No preaching (Theistic or otherwise quoting the Bible is okay)- Cite your sources. Note: if you can't cite your sources, say so because someone else may know it. Don't pretend you know it when you don't.- Enjoy cupcakes.

Honestly, the most important rule for us is to be civil to new folks. We should remember that the Raytractors were not exclusively as an atheist group, but as a set of detractors for the dishonest ministry of one man. We're branching out, but the issue is more integrity, and less superstition.

Also, we should be kind in helping people develop their reasoning, because that way we'll build a stable of people on any side of the issue who are having a good time.

1) Be civil unless you really don't want to. Swear all you like, call people freaking crudwipes for all I care, but please have a good reason for doing so. "Fuck" is not an all-purpose adjective.

2) Don't troll the forum. If you're going to be deliberately antagonistic, perhaps Ray will pay you to write his next book for him, but we don't want you.

3) Be open-minded. Don't disagree with someone just because they disagree with you: disagree with them because their position is wrong, and try to show them why it's wrong. Unless they're retarded assholes, in which case, disagree with them because they're retarded assholes.

4) Be un-prejudiced. Accept that others have different opinions from yours, and that sometimes nothing you do or say will change them. Don't alienate them because of this: we can all be friends anyway, and in general the more diversity we have in our group the healthier we'll be as a whole.And if that's not a viable option: trace their IP adress, track it with Google Earth, and Toilet Paper their house.

5) In debates: be scientific about stuff. Cite sources, provide links, etc. Be rational, don't just express your opinion and run away giggling. If you do, you're a moron. [Runs away giggling]

6) Have fun. This is an optional rule: some of us don't have the correct glands for "fun".

I suggest that we have a support corner where we can go and say "My name is fucken'el and I have resisted going to Ray's site for 3 days" or "forgive me SMRTarses for I have cracked and read Atheist Central three times today. Help me, please, get over my obsession".

And Char'Els got the basics of another thing: let's try to avoid disturbing images, video's, etc.

Terry Pratchett wrote about the Mended Drum that although it's was the premier direputable tavern in the city, a child could walk in and order a glass of milk, and be in no danger whatsoever except from his mother when she heard his extended vocabulary.

You can use it however you like if you really want to. That's the beauty of point 1.

Allow me to demonstrate:

1) Be fucking civil unless you really fucking don't fucking want to. Swear all you fucking like, call people fucking freaking fucking crudwipe fucks for all I fucking care, but please have a fucking good fucking reason for fucking doing so. Fucking "Fuck" is not a fucking all-purpose fucking adjective.

I like freedom of speech so I'm not so much into deleting or censoring, but I do like ridicule. I suggest any trolls are given a special section for movements.Seeing as Poes are pretty much synonymous with trolls we could have a Poe/Troll hall of fame.

But what I think is my awesome suggestion is:

I'd like to see how much of the bible is preached to us.

We could have a ghost bible that gets filled out by the various passages quoted to us.

This could act to should how much of the bible is actually used and by contrast useless.

Women should not be moderators in the forumAs in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. 1 Corinthians 14:31-35

NM,As you might expect, it is my opinion that the fewer rules, the better.

In my years of managing people I like to start a new group with no rules and evolve from there. You can make all the rules you want to, but you will find that something will come up that you will need to make a new rule anyway, which can be done in a couple seconds.

every rule is an impediment to some one's creativity.

I will suggest that you might not want to trash this format too quickly. Although I haven't seen the new one, if it is what I expect, you may find that when you separate the Posts, there will only be a very few that get many comments and many that don't receive any.

This format keeps people bunched together and everybody gets so comments as a matter of course and that has kept a fairly close core group.

It would be analogous to going to a social gathering with 50 people in an intimate and cozy bar with all the food and drinks concentrated in one area, everybody elbow to elbow, laughing, talking, versus having 50people in a large venue with many different rooms with their own types of food and drink; people that like shrimp will only be found in the shrimp "room" and those that don't like shrimp will never go in their.

It is my opinion that this venue is what has created a rather cohesive team.

Having said that, I am looking forward to the new home and hope it all works out well.

I've only read through half of the responses so far, and I'm sure the rest of them are good. However, I'd like to make a distinction between "the rules" and "the guidelines".

For instance, swearing or not swearing - it's a guideline. Use your discretion.

No trolling? That's a rule

No preaching? I personally think that's a guideline. Ray does little more than preach, but we're almost eager to engage him in dialogue based on it.

Nekkid pictures? That sounds like a guideline to me as well

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See what I'm trying to get at? There should be hard and fast rules, and there shouldn't be too many of those. There should also be guidelines that you're allowed to break - but habitual breaking of those guidelines may subject you to a spanking.

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As an engineer, I tend to want to have all possibilities considered and mapped into rules, but I know that this is a lousy way to moderate something like discussion. If we can establish a few rules and a number of suggestions, this provides a relatively transparent system capable of being flexible *and* strict (if need be).

Adrian Hayter could give us good feedback from the setting up of his atheist forums a few months ago. That forums started with no stated rules, and there have been issues.

I dislike banning. There could be the possibility of "sin bin" the offender cannot post for a set period, a week or a month.

Moderators are often accused of inconsistancy or arrogance. In an ideal world a mod would pm a user to point out defaults before striking.

At JREF moderators discus stuff between themselves before striking, thus acting as a team.

There could perhaps be a method of flagging posts to bring stuff to the mod's attention? They can't be everywhere at once. if the flags were visible to the user they would be aware that they had upset someone.

Unfortunately people can be such asseholes. Us included, depending on circumstances and provocation.

In an ideal world the users would self police: "Stew you're being an arse, can't you see a, b & c?" Stew - "Yep, you're right, it was because of the beer. I apologise to Mr X"

Sometimes tho the response might be: Stew - "I'm being an arse?, Mr X has called my integrity into question and on top of that he is consistantly full of shit. I'll apologise when I die, and there's a strong possibility I'll repeat my behaviour given the same circumstances"

The new site is in forum form, so I don't think the posts could be numbered. You can subscribe to and bookmark topics though, if that helps.

I'm honestly not sure about the most recent comments functionality. Maybe Mac could do some code that would enable that, but I have no idea.

I'm looking at it right now and I see that yes, you can use some html, but what I am seeing is more like you click a icon for bold text and one for italics. I don't see one for strike through, but that doesn't mean you can't do it, just that I am unfamiliar with how to do it. I'll bet one of the more techie folks here could show you how to do it.

I don't know about a policy for advertising. I hadn't thought of that, but it's a good point. See, that's why I'm so glad that so many people are chiming in. We need to consider things like that.

I'm pretty sure some of us will go through the stuff proposed here and put it into some kind of order. We'll probably post them here, too - however, MacGuyver runs the ship, so he gets the final say.

Lots of great and similar ideas here so far: few rules, forums for different purposes (though I find that too many of these tends to dilute their purpose), only lightly moderated, a set of standards that we want others to respect, etc.

Ben, the forums are phpBB so you'll be able to use BBCode, HTML, smilies - all according to your profile. Post numbering doesn't seem to be explicit, but perhaps MacGuyver can change or explain that.

I like your ideas, Stew. I don't want lots of whip cracking, and I'd like it to be run primarily by the community (democratic, self-regulating, etc). I also intend to be working *with* Nonmagic, rather than side-by-side with her; moderation should be by consensus as well.

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See? I'm over complicating stuff again :p This is what happens when you put an engineer in charge.

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